


Roses in the Snow

by overunderachiever



Series: Soulmate September 2020 [23]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (only referenced) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fire, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, I swear this is not as heavy as the tags make it out to be, Imprisonment, Its sorta a folk tale, Knife Mention, Light Angst, Little Bit of Magic, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Rescue Missions, Revolution, Virgil's anger + Remus' strength? a BAMF, at a certain age you switch bodies with your soulmate, blink and you miss it - Freeform, blood mention, but still please stay safe when reading this, death mention, its kinda between the two, like its just there for argument purposes, vague description of a fight, vague mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26604739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overunderachiever/pseuds/overunderachiever
Summary: It's lonely there, trapped in the tower, no way to escape, without seeing a soul for three years. It's a wonder Virgil hasn't gone mad yet.But there was a small flaw in the plan of the people that trapped him - that one day he would switch bodies with his soulmate. And when that happens...oh boy had the world better watch out.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders
Series: Soulmate September 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872199
Comments: 11
Kudos: 143
Collections: celi adores these fanfics





	Roses in the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up way longer than it was meant to be but I started trying to work out why Virgil was in a tower and why no-one came to check up on him and it kinda escalated. The ending is kinda abrupt but I had to stop at some point.
> 
> Also there is surprisingly little of Remus being actually disturbing, more just destructive and chaotic, so he might be a little OOC.

Virgil glared out the tower window at the endless expanse of golden forest, the tops of the tallest trees almost at his eye level. As usual the heavy silence weighed down around him, birdsong and the rustling of the trees and falling leaves blending together until he couldn't pick out any distinct sound.

This was no life, trapped here with nothing to do and hardly anything to mark the days, just alone with the endless passage of time.

Virgil never used to be a poet but solitude does strange things to you.

To be fair, Virgil did almost deserve to be imprisoned. He knew the risks when he tried to commit treason so he should have been prepared for that outcome. But wild, youthful pent-up rage is hardly something to be reasoned with so when the king had started having people dragged from their homes in the middle of the night never to be seen again he hadn't thought twice about trying to overthrow him.

He'd been so cautious, planning every detail in advance, screening every single person he recruited to make sure they wouldn't betray him. But he was just a teenager. And the bad guys won, the good guys lost.

Or maybe Virgil really was the bad guy.

Some days, in the ending loneliness of the tower, he would second guess himself. Maybe he hadn't been doing the right thing. Maybe there was a good reason for all those people to be taken in the night. Maybe he was dangerous and it was safer for everyone if he stayed here.

But then he would remember. If he really were that dangerous, they would just have had him killed, get it out of the way. No, this was a punishment mean to last, to torture and break him, so he would live here until he died of old age in a prison that was charmed to feed him and keep him warm and to never let him fall. This was pure cruelty, and only a truly evil king would have done this to him.

He would turn twenty soon. Three years of solitude.

Virgil didn't know exactly when his birthday was - he had lost count of the date sometime after the first eight months - but he knew it was some time in the winter, and now autumn was drawing to a close. It was around this time of year that Virgil would wonder again if maybe he did have a soulmate, maybe they just weren't eighteen yet, maybe soon they would come of age and the two would swap bodies and Virgil would be out of the tower, if only for a day.

Those precious twenty-four hours were plenty of time. He could write out an explanation of what had happened for his soulmate to find on their return to their body, and maybe Virgil could even set out on his own mission to save himself. He might have to leave out the detail that he was a convicted criminal, but he could always explain afterwards. It was entirely possible his soulmate wouldn't care about his crime, the universe had matched them up as being perfect for each other after all.

But the days drifted away, and the chill began to blow in, and for the first time in three years, that thread of hope began to fray.

\-----

Virgil woke up and instantly knew something was wrong. He was in _a_ bed but it wasn't _his_ bed. He wasn't in his clothes, or in his tower. Even his own body felt wrong...until Virgil realised it wasn't his body after all.

That had him shooting out of bed, glancing around the messy room until he found a very cracked hand mirror. For a second he was hesitant to look. Did this count as an invasion of privacy? No, he decided, not really, he was only looking at his soulmate's face.

Slowly he turned the mirror round and couldn't help but let out an involuntary whistle. His soulmate's bright green eyes stared back at him in surprise, wild matted black hair with a premature grey streak falling into his eyes, tiny scars littering his face with a longer one slashed across his left eye, a nose that looked like it had been broken at least twice.

Looking now at himself, Virgil could see the rest of his soulmate's body had been through the wars as much as his face. Scars littered his arms and legs, skin covered in so many freckles it might as well have been a tan, calluses on the palms of his hands. His soulmate was tall too, and broad. Was it weird to find him hot when Virgil was currently walking around in his body?

He found himself wondering what his soulmate was like, what expressions usually rested on those features. Currently Virgil was looking into the mirror with a mix of confusion and fear and slight awe and hope. It looked wrong, somehow, on his soulmate's face, like the muscles weren't used to such a soft expression.

Virgil shook himself out of his thoughts. He had soulmate who looked like he was constantly getting into scrapes now stuck in a tower for anywhere up to twenty-four hours and that did not sound like a good combination. He had to rescue him, and by inference himself.

\-----

It took Remus several minutes to realise what was going on when he woke up.

This was partly because he was used to waking up in random places he didn't remember going to, usually holding cells, so it wasn't until he realised that he wasn't even in his own body that he knew what was going on.

Of course! It was his eighteenth birthday! This must mean he had swapped bodies with his soulmate so now all he had to do was make his way back to his house and he would probably meet them halfway! Oh this was so exciting!

Remus looked around the room for a door. But there wasn't one. Just a very large window.

He wandered over to look out and...well bang goes that plan.

That was his first thought when he looked out the window and only saw the tops of the bare trees, the snowy ground almost a hundred feet below. His second thought was who on earth had dared to imprison _his_ soulmate?!? His third thought was oh God he was going to get so bored waiting to switch back, because there was definitely no way out of the tower.

Remus considered tying the bedsheets together but knew that wouldn't be long enough. He wondered if using all his soulmate's clothing too would help but apparently they only owned one set of clothes and Remus was wearing them.

Upon this realisation, Remus then got distracted admiring his soulmate in the mirror. They were shorter and scrawnier than he was, and probably not as strong (when Remus tested this theory he nearly pulled a shoulder muscle). He had a few, very faint scars, as if whatever had caused them had been years ago, and his skin was pasty from lack of sunshine.

But he was also undeniably beautiful. The soft hair that fell into Remus' face no matter what he did to it, the soulful eyes that definitely didn't look quite right with Remus' general manic expression, the almost delicate bone structure. This was a face that could launch ships, start wars, cause the bloodshed and burning of a hundred cities. He almost looked familiar but Remus didn't know why.

At this point he got distracted again and started looking for a trap door or secret passage that might get him out. But there was hardly anywhere for one to be - the single room was so small and bare, no carpets to hide movable floorboards, no out of place stones that when pushed would reveal a staircase.

The tower was not yielding its secrets.

Well, it obviously hadn't yet met the destructive capabilities of Remus' boredom.

\-----

When Virgil stepped outside his soulmates house and into the cold he immediately recognised where he was - the capital city, his hometown.

Last time he was here he'd been at the head of a revolution, all the fire and wrath of the downtrodden at his command. And the last time he'd seen this place was just as he was being shoved, chained and beaten, into a sealed iron carriage and being carted off to some corner of the forest where he could be tortured with solitude until he died of old age.

He was itching to leave, desperate to get out of the city that betrayed him, terrified someone would somehow work out who he was and capture him again. This was his one chance at freedom and there was no way in hell he was going to waste it.

But he couldn't leave yet. Not when he needed supplies for the journey and his soulmate's house had contained all of a rotting chicken leg and _something_ that might once have been a bread if the mould hadn't completely destroyed it.

He made his way quickly to the market, head down, trying not to attract any attention. Unfortunately, this somehow had the opposite effect as he got strange looks from everyone he passed. Apparently he wasn't acting very much like his soulmate at all, but hopefully no-one would recognise Virgil the Rebel's mannerisms three years on.

In no time at all, Virgil had a small stash of bread and cheese, a skein of water, and several lengths of rope. His soulmate apparently hadn't had any money but Virgil was a master thief in his street urchin days and hadn't lost his touch yet. He wasn't sure about the whole morality of stealing from these hard-working stall holders but it wasn't like he was going to be making a habit of it. As soon as he freed himself/his soulmate from that infernal tower, he was going to get as far away from this country as he could. The fight for democracy had failed here a long time ago and Virgil wasn't going to risk his life again trying to bring it back.

Virgil knew the exact path the carriage had taken him down when he was arrested, and he'd watched out the window the whole time in an attempt to memorise the way, just in case he ever needed it. He wasn't sure how well he'd remember but as he made his was to the edge of the city, towards the surrounding snow-covered forest, he knew he had to try.

"Stop! Villain!"

The shout came from somewhere behind Virgil and he spun around in alarm to see three royal guards, swords at the ready, charging straight towards him.

\-----

Remus knew why his soulmate's face was familiar.

The last few hours he'd spent removing every floorboard in the tower so only the cross beams were showing in an attempt to find a way down. He hadn't been unsuccessful but that wasn't important now.

What was important was that his soulmate was Virgil of the Storm, the boy who'd led the rebellion against the asshole king back when Remus was only fifteen years old, too young to help. Virgil the Rebel, Remus' _hero_.

So _this_ was where they'd taken him! Oh this was wonderful!

So many thoughts and ideas were racing round Remus' head that he could scarcely keep track of them all. But one thought in particular was rising to the top: _this meant they could start the revolution again!_

There was a reason why the crowds had flocked to Virgil's side in the uprising. He was handsome and charismatic and had spoken with such passion and determination and fire that anyone who listened had been completely enraptured by his words. They had believed, the people of that country, really true believed they could succeed. And the promises Virgil had made about the world they could build from the ashes of the old weren't just what the people wanted to hear, no it was what the people needed. Rights and freedoms they had never been granted while the tiny fraction of the wealthy took it all for themselves.

They had been so sure they could win.

But it had all been for nothing.

Someone had betrayed them, the night of the uprising they were ambushed, and Virgil was captured in minutes, his supporters scattering. Everything they had worked for came crashing down around them, and the future that young Remus had believed the adults would make for him was destroyed.

But was all hope really lost? Maybe, just maybe, his Virgil (though he wasn't really his Virgil, not yet) would get them both free of here and they could try again, get it right this time.

That hope was more than enough for Remus and he went back to his current task of removing every single screw in the dresser with his nails.

\-----

Virgil's fight or flight instincts kicked in. There was no where to run, that was for sure, going deeper into the forest would just make it harder, so he had to stay and fight.

The guards were on him in a moment and Virgil was lashing out and hearing the satisfying crunch of a breaking nose. When he was younger he'd had to learn to fight to survive, especially with his small size, and now that muscle memory came flooding back to him, this time with the added benefit of his soulmate's height and strength.

When the red mist cleared from his vision, two of the guards were out cold on the floor and Virgil was holding the other up by his neck.

"Resisting arrest again Remus?" The guard spat. "You might have been more successful now, but next time it'll be the death penalty once and for all."

Virgil could barely contain his relief that these guards still thought of him as his soulmate, as Remus. He glared at the man who was now gasping for breath."What do you mean, next time?" Then his fist connected with the side of the man's head and he fell unconscious to the floor.

For a moment Virgil considered killing the three of them with their own swords - no witnesses would mean no-one would come to find him - but even Virgil of the Storm wouldn't have killed someone in cold blood and he wasn't about to start now.

He pulled Remus' worn (and frankly very grubby) cloak tighter around him to ward off the winter chill and set off into the forest.

\-----

Apparently there was a charm on the tower so that nothing could fall out of it, and nothing could fall down the inside. Remus supposed this was to prevent his soulmate from just jumping and ending his torture early but it really derailed his plans for "throw things out the window and see if I can hit that tree".

He was currently trying to climb out the window and onto the roof of the tower but wasn't having much success with that either. This was less to do with magic and more to do with the fact that the walls were very smooth and Remus kept overestimating the size of his soulmate's body, reaching too far and falling, only to find himself bouncing off the air and back into the tower room.

But if at first you don't succeed, try and try again.

This motto lasted Remus all of two hours, which he was very proud of, before he wondered if the nails he'd taken out of the dresser would mark the walls and just like that he had something else to occupy his time.

The sound of the metal grating on stone as Remus started drawing obscene pictures would probably have sent anyone else running, but it was like music to Remus' ears. It was similar to nails on a chalkboard but didn't give him flashbacks to being forced to sit still all day in school. It was perfect.

With a new past time to keep him occupied, Remus lapsed into quiet.

\-----

Virgil had been trudging though the forrest for what felt like hours now, worries running through his head. What if this wasn't the right path? What if he missed the turning? What if the guards caught up and found him? What if he didn't get to the tower in time and Remus didn't know where to go? What if the rope wasn't long enough? What if they switched back right as Remus was climbing down the rope and the shock made him fall and...

No. That wasn't going to happen. If it was getting too close to switch back time they would just wait until after it happened before Virgil climbed down. Besides the tower wouldn't let anyone fall anyway.

This didn't help with all the _other_ worries, but it was something.

Then, through the trees, Virgil saw a bright flash of scarlet. Right by the side of the path, where the vaguest track in the undergrowth was almost visible, was a red rosebush. Last time he had been here, when the guards had dragged him struggling from the carriage and set off into the woods on foot, that had been the last memorable thing he'd seen before the dark of the night closed in finally and they were stumbling through the forest with only two lanterns to light the way.

Three years ago there had only been one rose, bent and quivering in the autumn cold, a few petals drifting down when Virgil had been shoved past it.

He remembered he'd struggled and a knife had been shoved to his throat, drawing blood that dripped onto that single rose.

Virgil looked back, as he'd been dragged away, and he could have sworn the rose had looked brighter and fuller than before.

And now Virgil was here again, his soulmate's cloak wrapped around him to keep out the biting wind, surrounded by dark, bare trees and new fallen snow, standing in front of a rose bush in full bloom. Snow had settled on the leaves and all around, the ground frozen and hard, the sun barely reaching the depths of the forest in winter. And yet...the bush was covered in blood-red blooms, standing proud and tall and full against the white and black of the forest.

Something, some emotion Virgil had not felt in years, stirred in his chest, raising and waking from a three-year long slumber. For a moment Virgil could almost hear the blood roaring in his ears, taste the rebellion on his tongue, smell the freedom, the air crackling and tingling.

Everyone had some tiny amount of magic in them and in this silent corner of the forest the spilled blood of a fallen rebel had let the roses bloom all year round. It was a sign.

 _No_. It _wasn't_ a sign. This was just some fluke of nature, some freak happening caused by his high emotions at the time that spilled out and made something beautiful but completely pointless happen.

Virgil pushed into the forest, forcing the sight of the rosebush in the snow from his mind.

\-----

Dusk was drawing in which meant Remus was finding it increasingly difficult to see his drawings, but the sparks occasionally created by the nail on the stone gave him an idea. It didn't take him long to set a piece of wood on fire and shove it between some planks to keep it upright. The makeshift lamp worked surprisingly well, the flame sending flickering orange light across the stone.

He was currently drawing the story of the great uprising, where Virgil of the Storm, rebel, hero, martyr, had lead the people to fight for freedom against their cruel king. The story was quite embellished somewhat, and there were great gaps in Remus' knowledge of events because he hadn't actually been involved, but he filled those in with vivid and exaggerated descriptions of what he thought might have happened.

Who knows, maybe someone in the far future would discover this tower hidden away in the woods, with the tale of Virgil the Rebel inscribed into the walls. When the revolution came and the king was over thrown, this would become another folk tale told over a warm fire in the dead of winter. The story of Virgil the Saviour, who came back to rescue the downtrodden from their fate, his soulmate Remus at his side.

Oh that was a story Remus wanted to live!

He was just sitting back to admire the finished piece when he felt an undeniable drowsiness overtake him. It was dragging him down into unconsciousness insistently, forcing him to sleep so they could switch back. He only barely managed to stumble across the wooden beams and into the bed in time.

The last thing Remus saw before the world dragged him under was his makeshift torch fall onto the cross-beam, flames licking at the wood.

\-----

Out in the forest, Virgil could just see his tower not so far away though the trees. He gave a triumphant shout and started to run towards it but no sooner had he taken the first few steps forward did a sudden wave of exhaustion crash over him, and he collapsed on the forest floor, asleep.

\-----

The first thing Remus knew as he woke up was that he was deathly cold. The second was that he was in his own body. The third was that he could smell smoke.

Virgil's tower was on fire.

He shot up off the ground, dislodging the fine layer of snow that had settled on him in the night. In the weak light of dawn he caught sight of a faint orange glow up ahead, and the unmistakable sight of a stone tower.

He bolted forward, grabbing the pile of rope off the floor as he ran. His soulmate was trapped in a fire that he himself had caused with his own carelessness! And for the first time in Remus' carefree life he felt _terrified_.

He was at the base of the tower in minutes, yelling himself horse trying to get Virgil to wake up while also tying the ropes together. It didn't really look like it would be long enough but Remus didn't have time to worry about that now.

"Virgil!" He cried again, desperately hoping his soulmate would wake in time, if it wasn't already too late.

But Virgil didn't reply.

\-----

Virgil awoke to blistering heat and smoke in his lungs and clouding vision and someone faintly calling his name. He shot up in bed, vaguely aware he was in his own body again but not caring to take stock of anything beyond that. He needed to get to the window.

And then he saw that most of the floor was missing, the only things to walk on being the cross beams.

Technically he knew he shouldn't be able to fall down the gaps, the enchantment on the tower was meant to ensure he couldn't die by falling. But fire was a notorious counter to magic and Virgil couldn't trust any of the protection charms would still hold.

He just had to hope Remus was ready to save him.

Virgil took one careful step onto the nearest unburnt beam, gathering his clothes about him so they wouldn't be set alight. From there he was able to get to the next, and then the next, until he was only three feet from the window. And that was when he came face to face with a low wall of fire and no more beams.

He had to jump across to the window ledge.

Adrenaline was pounding through his veins, making every muscle shake and his legs feel weak. Somewhere behind him, his bed collapsed making sparks fly across the room and sending a tongue of flame shooting across the beam he was stood on. Virgil knew it was now or never.

He jumped.

For a moment it seemed like he wouldn't make it...and then he was clinging to the stone ledge, one foot on a jutting out brick, the other dangling down towards the dark abyss of the centre of the tower. As he pulled himself up to straddle the ledge, cursing his body's lack of strength, he heard a call from far down below.

There stood his soulmate, coil of rope in one hand, with a look of immense relief on his face that quickly turned to wild excitement. Even from this far up, he could tell his soulmate suited his appearance far better than Virgil had, there was something about the manic gleam in his eye and that excitable grin-

"Here! Catch this!" Virgil was jolted from his thoughts by Remus' voice. He gripped the window ledge hard with his legs and reached out as Remus threw the wighted end of the rope...

Which fell a good fifteen feet too short.

"Try again without holding onto the end of the rope" Virgil called down and Remus nodded, determination taking over his face.

This time the rope reached the right height but Virgil almost fell trying to lean out the window to catch it.

"Again but closer to the tower this time." He might have been a little rude there but the fire was licking closer and closer to his precarious perch so Virgil got a free pass.

Remus didn't even comment, just threw the rope again and...Virgil let out a shout of triumph as his fist closed around it.

Now he just needed something to tie it to.

There was a crossbeam right by the ledge that was as yet unburned. Virgil didn't know how long he would have before it caught fire and gave out, or before the rope itself caught fire, but it was all he had.

He tugged on the rope to make sure it was tight then carefully lowered himself out the window, resting his feet against the tower wall and holding the rope tight in his hands as he shakily walked down backwards.

Remus was shouting encouragement and occasionally telling Virgil to hurry up which was lovely but didn't really help. It was very present in his mind that if he fell now, high enough to kill him, he would be catapulted straight back into the inferno above.

There came an alarmed shout from Remus just as Virgil reached the end of the rope, still over ten feet above ground. He looked up at the top of the rope and saw a tongue of flame lick along it, burning it up at an alarming rate.

"You're going to have to let go!"

"I'll break my neck if I do that!"

"Not if I catch you!" For some reason Virgil could not fathom, there was a flirtatious note in Remus' voice. But as the fire began to trickle down the rope, Virgil realised he had no choice.

"Don't worry! You're so short and I'm really strong!"

Oh, didn't Virgil know it!

"I'll count you in. Three...two...one..."

Virgil let go...

"OOF!" And he was in Remus' arms.

Virgil looked up through his tousled hair at his soulmate's oddly handsome face. For a few minutes he allowed himself to forget that he had just escaped certain death, and his prison of three years, and that he'd made his soulmate a wanted man in his home town, and that he would have to flee the country and never return. For a few minutes Virgil just gazed into his soulmate's eyes (they hadn't seemed nearly that striking a green in the mirror) and let himself pretend this was the happily ever after of his fairy tale.

\-----

Remus however, was very focussed on the fact that this was only the beginning. Virgil (his soulmate!) (the hero of the people!) was free and Remus had saved him! And now they could start another revolution but win this time, and then (and then!) they could ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after!

Remus set Virgil down onto the frozen ground and started dragging him towards the path, launching into an animated description of everything he had done in the tower while he was bored, which morphed into a sincere apology for accidentally starting a fire, Virgil quickly forgave him because it was rather cathartic to see his prison burn and it probably broke the No Falling spell anyway. After that Remus continued his word vomit, quickly getting side tracked by rambling about how amazing Virgil was in the first revolution.

Every time he glanced to look at Virgil's expression to check if he should stop talking yet, he only saw small smiles and light blushes. Oh, didn't that just make Remus so undeniably happy to have finally found someone who liked listening to him!

Suddenly he broke off speaking. There, nestled at the base of a tree, in amongst the snow, was a rose bush in full bloom.

"Oh wow! Look at this Virgil! It's so cool!" He rushed forward to get a closer look.

"Uh...yeah. I'm pretty sure its like that cause when the guards brought me through here I got cut and some of the blood fell on it. You know, magic's weird like that."

Remus gasped. "Oh that's awesome!" He stood up and spun to face his soulmate. "This could be our symbol!"

"What do you mean?"

"You know! The symbol for the revolution! A rose growing in the dead of winter! Like the way the people rise up in the face of adversity! We could have it on flags and storm the palace and-"

"What revolution?" Virgil's voice had suddenly gone cold.

Remus' heart sank. "Well now you're back I thought...I thought this meant we could try again..."

"Never gonna happen." Virgil turned away, scowling.

"...why?" Remus' voice had never sounded so small.

"We failed! The army ambushed and crushed us. They killed so many people and made an example of me and condemned me to solitude. There's no point in trying again, no-one will support us, they wont want to risk it. _I_ don't want to risk it."

"But!-"

"No, Remus! I've had three years, _three years_ , to think about it, to try and work out what we could have done better to win. Don't you think if it were possible I would have come up with a solution by now?"

Virgil paused and Remus felt his heart breaking. It felt like rejection, like Virgil didn't just not want to try, he didn't want to be with Remus either. That didn't make sense, but it's how he felt.

"Look, there's nothing we can do. It's better just to get out while we can and find a better life for us. I'm sorry-"

Something in Remus snapped. "No you're not! You're not sorry! You're a coward is what you are!" Virgil looked shocked, betrayed, but it only fuelled Remus' anger. "I used to think you were a hero, our knight in shining armour to lead us to freedom! But if you ever were, you aren't any more.

"No-one ever stopped talking about you, you know that? In the quiet of the night the people whisper to each other that they wish things could have been different, that someone, anyone, could come along to try again. There are murmurings and mutterings of another push and people are working hard to learn tactics so we don't make the same mistakes again. We're desperate but we're still fighting." Remus hardly knew where these words were coming from, all he knew was he had to persuade Virgil to come back if it was the last thing he did.

"But we need you to be our leader again! Are you going to take that away from all those people who struggle so much every day to get by when the decisions are made by people who will never know hardship? Are you going to just give up and abandon them?"

Remus sighed. "You wont be alone, you know. You kinda were last time but not now. Not now the whole nation would take up arms the moment you told them to. Not when there are people who've dedicated these last few years to learning strategies and tactics. We can win...you just need to believe it."

For a moment Virgil almost looked swayed but then his face crumpled. "I lost so many people I loved last time. They killed my whole family, my friends either died or betrayed me to stay alive - not that I blame them. You are all I have now and I don't want to loose you too."

At those words, Remus the criminal, who laughed in the face of danger and ate fear for breakfast, felt a tear roll down his cheek.

"I'll never leave you."

"You cant promise that."

"I don't care, I'm going to anyway. Virgil I _swear_ we can win this and I will be by your side _forever_."

And suddenly they were embracing, throwing themselves into each other's arms and holding on for dear life. Remus had never really been one for hugs, and he got the impression Virgil wasn't either, but in that moment it felt right.

They were both crying but neither of them would admit it.

Eventually they broke apart, but still clung on tight. Virgil gave Remus a watery smile that made his heart flutter.

"Alright then. I wont promise we'll go through with it, it might not be the right time and I don't want to fail again, but you have my word that I am damn well gonna try."

_And there you have it! The story of how Virgil was saved from his prison, and how he and Remus decided to embark on the great rebellion that led the Snow Roses' to victory._

_The rest is history._

~~*~~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this hot mess, I swear I never meant for it to get so out of hand lol.
> 
> My [Tumblr](https://overunderachiever.tumblr.com)


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